Surviving colonial service required publicly renouncing one’s own nationalist past

Evidence

In order to be reinstated in the army, Fawzï had to distance himself publicly, in front of the khedive, from the Urabists to whom he was once politically loyal. Gordon made an appointment for him, telling him to paint as black a picture as possible of Uräbï and to laud the memory of the khedive’s father, Isma`ïl. Armed with Gordon’s words, in yet another demonstration of oral camouflage, Fawzï went off “to meet with shame” [fi adhyäl al-khajal]. — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 594

Categorization

• XREF: Fawzï’s coerced public renunciation mirrors the coerced assimilation dynamics of Colonial Education discussed in Fanon and, fictionally, in Naqvi’s Home Boy.